tjs_whatnot | (Reply)

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Okay, so I may have mentioned that I'd signed up to write two stories for the Kingsman Reverse Bang. I'd gotten a very good start on the first (it's about 15k and I'd say a third done - slowish burn, the characters finally got to talk to each other at the 12k mark). But I hadn't started the second, and had been having second thoughts about my story idea - a Porn Star AU - that would have needed the artist to redo a bit of her work, which she hasn't done yet.

Then I got bitten by a new idea. Mostly because Taron Egerton is playing Elton John in Rocketman, but also because I was listening to Bad Company (yes, revisiting my childhood musical tastes) and Shooting Star gave me SUCH ideas. I socialized the idea with my artist and she's pleased with it (and I think relieved she doesn't have to do more work). Started it on Monday, it's now almost 7k.

(Warning for alcohol abuse and attempted drug usage)

Eggsy sniffles and blows his nose into the expensive stationary. He does the gross thing and admires how the snot and blood decorate the embossed logo before balling the letter up and tossing it towards the basket across the room. It falls short. Way short.

What a fucking metaphor for my life.

His brain itches and he needs something to make that stop. There's a bottle Jack at hand, not even half-empty and Eggsy easily fixes that, swallowing until the numbness takes over. The problem is that the numbness quiets the music, too. Maybe that's why Eggsy hasn't had a song worth singing in three years.

He'd started drinking to quiet the voices that had screamed at him to run as far and fast as he could when he'd been about to sign that record deal – the one that gave him millions of pounds in exchange for his soul. He just has to write the kind songs that the label tells him are sellable, keep quiet while the technicians Auto-Tune the Welsh and London out of his voice, and never, ever do anything that would destroy the fantasies of all those millions of teenaged girls and middle-aged housewives who watch his videos and buy his music.

The last three years have been spent denying the truth about the very things that make him who he is, all for that most elusive of prizes – stardom.

And now, he has nothing left. No career, no management, no music. Eggsy doesn't know what he even sounds like anymore. All he can hear is the over-produced tones of a characterless voice singing words that have no meaning.

The itch is getting itchier and Eggsy finishes the rest of the Jack before reaching for the box he keeps on the table next to the couch. Except the box is empty. Even the silver razor blade and matching straw are gone – one of the groupies at the last party he'd had a few weeks ago must have helped herself to it before she'd left. And the white powder lingering in the corner of the box isn't remnants of the last bag of blow, but simply fouling tasting dust.

If he wants to get high, he's going to need more than that.

Eggsy may be broke, but that's a relative condition. He owns his condo and his cars, his mother's house is paid off and there's money in the bank for his sister's education, but there's no more big money coming in, and the dribs and drabs that hit his bank account are going to get smaller and smaller, especially after Kingsman takes its cut. So right now, he can afford to call his dealer, stop at an ATM for cash, and buy the blow, but the coke is quickly going to become an extravagance he'll have to do without.

Maybe without the fucking vultures at Kingsman and the label censoring his every thought, he won't need it anymore.